Dodging An Expensive Bullet, Completing A Class, A U.F.O., and Another Class

When I left off last week, I was playing with the homework from my quilting class. I was also finishing up reorganizing many of the unfinished projects and fabrics I'd purchased with projects in mind. I had a stack of gorgeous fat quarters that needed put away in my generic quilting stash, so I went to do that. That's when I remembered my stash bin was over full and that I could pull out some of the kitted projects from there and give them the same organizational treatment as the others.

It seemed like a fantastic idea and I started pulling out fabrics destined to be things. That's when I heard an odd noise. Like little rattling things hitting hard surfaces. I started digging. That when I found: seeds.

It seems a mouse decided my stash bin would be the best place to have a larder for winter. After uttering some phrases that would make a sailor stop, think, and turn crimson, I started digging some more... and sniffing as I went. The universe was apparently trying to create some balance for all the recent frustrations I've had because there were no rodent corpses, no feces, no urine, and no chewed up fabric. Just lots and lots of seeds.

FuzzyHusband helped me move the giant bin out of storage and I started sorting by color family. Thankfully I'd also just purchased a box of color catchers by Shout. Those things saved my stash because they caught all the loose dye as I washed every scrap of fabric to remove any mouse taint. Because... ick.

While I was at it, I finally got around to reorganizing the stash into manageable 16 QT bins that are clear and labeled them. Small price to pay to save a few hundred dollars (or more) worth of fabric. Seventeen bins in all and that doesn't count: where the batiks are stored, some fabric I set aside for a mystery quilt, and another 3 fabrics that I have multiple yards of to make some luggage accessories. The last one is tied up in a clean pillow case because I ran out of bins. Once I finish some more small quilted things, I'll free up a bin. No sense in buying more.

Once all the laundry was done and the holiday was over, I was able to go get more fabric to bind my little basket mini quilt. It's finished now and I"m quite pleased with it!

In all of the cleaning I did in the previous week, many old projects rolled back out into the light of day. Remember this one? I just needed to make a label and finish a single corner of the binding... 3 years ago. Its finished now too!

That brings me to today. I took another quilting class and have quite a bit of work ahead of me. I"m only going to tease you with the "before" photo because I want to get back to sewing.

Now I'm going to go finish the quilting on my friend's quilt and then start back on my quilting class homework. See you next weekend! Oh and Ellie says, "zzzzzzzzzz."

Busy Week

The past week was really busy with appointments, phone calls, and errands. Lots of hurrying up and waiting. And then there was a high school graduation and celebration out of town on Friday.

FuzzyHusband has been encouraging me to get out more and meet new friends in the area. With that in mind, I let myself get talked into a quilting class yesterday. I'd been meaning to try paper piecing for the longest time anyway and the concept was interesting.

Getting some practice with my new machine's free motion foot was nice too. It's not the best quilting job, but I can't get better without practice. I haven't bound it because I didn't figure out until I was already home (and the shop was closed) that the fabrics for the dark border and binding were mislabeled in the kit. So I need a new strip of fabric for my binding. Whoops. That's what I get for being excited to play and not checking the widths against the directions.

After assembling and quilting comes embellishing. I just tossed the flowers, leaves, and bag of beads on the quilt for this photo. It was late and I wanted to get some sleep. I'll be arranging and attaching the pretty bits later today.

All in all it was a fun little class and a great way to spend a couple of hours on a Saturday. I'll likely be doing more of these. Every month there's a different mini quilt pattern and they all feature different piecing and embellishment technique, so each one is a skill builder. Plus the other ladies were lots of fun.

And if I'm being totally honest, I needed a mental and emotional break from my friend's quilt. It's been harder to do for me than I realized and I was really fighting with the quilting last weekend. So I promised myself that I'd only work on fun little things for this holiday weekend to give myself a break. Plus I could totally have seen my friend taking this class too. Like me, her favorite color was purple and she loved flowers. And I could hear her in my head telling me to have a bit of a rest. So I listened.

Speaking of resting, two of my ladies were competing for table space and attention the other day. I couldn't resist getting some photos. This one is my favorite.

Stay safe over the holiday and I'll see you next weekend!